Swedish late nights

In between the visits to Copenhagen and the adventures on ferries in Norway, I also went to Stockholm and visited the Stockholm archipelago which extends from the city far into the Baltic.  

Stockholm is, as we are told by the cool people in the cool magazines, the coolest city in Europe (and not as a description of the weather). The people are all young and absurdly good looking, the coffee is perfect*, the fashion is hip**, and the food is a delicious, usually esoteric take, on local under appreciated home cooking. And though I take what all the magazines say with a grain of salt, Stockholm is actually a very cool city. 

I was naively surprised by the scale of the city. Its location on the water, spread out over several hilly islands of the Stockholm Archipelago, lends it an air of sophistication and majesty. Take the imperial buildings of Paris, the water of Amsterdam, and a touch of the east European aesthetic of Berlin, shake them up and you've got Stockholm. After Copenhagen which is really a rather small, flat, and contained city, without a lot of flashy architecture (from any period), Stockholm felt like an exciting urban jolt. 

My friend and I stayed in Sodermalm, which is the Brooklyn of Stockholm. For the first time in my trip, I felt very underdressed (I'm traveling with a small suitcase so I can be forgiven the constant wearing of jeans all the time). Stockholm is a city where people make an effort to look their best and it only helps that most of them are tall and slim. It all made for some rather amazing people watching. 

The food was delicious. Like in Copenhagen where there is a focus on updating and improving the basic tenets of local cuisine, I found it very much to my liking though if you struggle with seafood, cream, mustard, or new potatoes you might run out of things to eat. I certainly didn't. That said, like all cosmopolitan European cities there is a good variety of other foods. I just prefer to eat local. 

My first visit was spent enjoying a music festival located right in the middle of the city, on the centrally located island of Skeppsholmen. The music festival felt like our own private concert smack in the center of town. We could walk around and look at the city and the boats bobbing in their moorings all the while listening to Prince jam for 3 hours. Pretty nice.

 The rest of the week, upon a friend's recommendation, we escaped the city to enjoy the late summer sun on an island in the archipelago. We took a ferry out of town (and you all know how much I love ferries) and landed a couple of hours later at the jetty of Grinda Island. We rented a tiny cabin, bought a lot of wine, and spent 3 days discovering the tiny island and swimming in the bracing waters of the archipelago. We were treated to three gorgeous scandinavian orange and pink summer sunsets reflecting in the waters of the baltic. It was all rather magical. Just a pity that when the summer is over, a very long, and very cold winter settles in.  

I went onwards from this first stop to Norway and the fjords, but came back for an afternoon of sailing with some friends. Another glorious day (the weather really cooperated) and a beautiful afternoon on the water, and I think I may have fallen in love with Sweden in the summer. There is a lot more to see and do, which means more trips for the future.  

My trip in the north ended with a very long 24 hour train from Stockholm to Den Haag (The Hague). I will write about that in the next post.  

* Have you noticed that no city can be deemed "cool" without having a corresponding great coffee scene? I suspect its because the journalists who are sent out to find the "cool" spend a lot of time in coffee shops and wont approve of a city until it has a sufficiently dynamic and esoteric coffee scene for them to enjoy while writing their articles. Just a thought.

** Mostly unwearable (because I'm not tall or slim) or unaffordable (even if you adjust for Scandinavian purchasing power). But I think thats how one defines "hip".

The fjords of Norway, or public transportation adventures in Scandinavia

I met someone in Copenhagen who compared Norway to the Qatar of Scandinavia. I thought that was a fairly silly idea but after almost two weeks in between Denmark and Sweden, this idea popped right back into my head after a few hours in Oslo. Lets me be clear here - Oslo has nothing to do with Qatar. For starters, weather wise the Norwegians consider themselves lucky if the sun shines and I'm sure Fifa would have no issues hosting the World Cup here during a Norwegian summer (probably give them more opportunity to sell useless swag such as blankets and wooly hats emblazoned with some Fifa approved and copyrighted symbol). Lets not even discuss their views on women and economic equality.

What is odd after so much time in places where the bicycle is king is the amount of very nice German made luxury cars and a lack, in comparison, of two wheeled self-powered transportation. Norway is after all an oil and gas state. Lucky them. I subscribe to the theory that sometimes the worst thing that can happen to a country is the discovery of vast hydrocarbon resources. Norway seems to be one of the few to have dodged the bullets of corruption, oligarchy, environmental catastrophes (helps that the gas fields are in the ocean) and all the other nasties often associated with your average OPEC country. (Though I need to have a chat with my more informed friends, they do seem to suffer from a particularly expensive form of Dutch Disease). That said, it does have a very different feel to egalitarian and New York Times-darling Denmark.

I arrived in Oslo with a plan to hit up all the museums but instead spent a lot of Norwegian Kroner and time persuading Norwegian Airlines to hurry up and return to me my misplaced suitcase. That put a damper on things, but I did manage to have a moment of zen and go the Nobel Peace Prize museum. The Nobel prizes are handed out in both Stockholm and Oslo (confusing right?). Well, all the prizes save for the big one are handed out in Stockholm. Alfred Nobel was Swedish after all, but at the time of his death Norway was part of Sweden, and in an act of "can we please stop arguing guys" he decreed that the peace prize should be handed out in Oslo (or Christiania at the time). For such a small country - 6 million or so people - Norway has a busy and old history. Two things I happen to enjoy tremendously.

The winner last year was the European Union and the museum is dedicate to the winner of each year's prize. I definitely had a little moment of emotion going through the exhibit, it may have been a reaction to how powerful an act the initial idea of the EU was or just being upset at loosing my damn bag.

The next day, suitcase in hand (returned at 10 pm) I was on a plane to the town of Ålesund. My plan was to rent a car and drive the 100km or so to the tiny non-village of Øye. Located in the non-village is a historic hotel where Kaiser Wilhelm (he of the Great War), Karen Blixen (she of Out of Africa) and Norway's greatest playwright Ibsen stayed. I found most of that out after arriving, so don't think so highly of me. My initial reasoning was to get away from cities, people, noise and see some mountains that end in the ocean, otherwise known as fjords.

What I overlooked in my planning was the difficulty of securing an automatic transmission car in northwestern Norway. Yep, you have deduced correctly, I can not drive manual. It's a bit embarrassing considering my history and my family's ability. I just never really saw the need, until, well, arriving in Ålesund and being faced with an array of cars none of which I could drive. (I should add that I have driven manual I just have never enjoyed it enough to practice and didn't feel like taking a risk on vertiginous Norwegian fjord roads. Safety never takes a day off). My only options, because this was a Sunday and everything shuts down in rural Norway on a Sunday, was to take two buses, two ferries, and a cab to the hotel. I had only one moment of panic, when I arrived in sad-looking Ørsta in the pouring gray rain, disembarked from the bus and realized there were no taxis in sight. I love the Internet and Norwegian Telecom.

I made it thankfully, five hours after arriving at the airport and astoundingly having made no savings whatsoever in 'choosing' public transportation over a rental car.

The hotel was a bizarre little Victorian time warp staffed by the most charming and good looking young Norwegians. I spent the first day going for a long walk in the rain and starring up at massive waterfalls that seemed to start in the clouds ringing the mountains. The second day I combined a bus with a bicycle to go see the world famous Geriangerfjord. We seemed to be all alone in the world on the ferry from Hellsylt to Gerianger until we got to the end of the fjord and half of the world's cruise ship fleet was anchored there. It was a jarring sight after the isolation you feel everywhere else in the area. A hot chocolate, a ferry ride back to the other side, an hour and half bike ride through freezing rain, dodging cows, and I made it back to the hotel.

This morning to make my first of two buses back to the airport (so much simpler on a work day), a lovely young man from the hotel named Magnus (yep) who, on his day off was off to literally jump off a mountain with a flight suit (seriously) dropped me off at the bus station. It was a fitting farewell to this interesting country. I plan to come back and explore these mountains more, this time though I'll either book my car way in advance of maybe learn to properly drive a manual car.

København, or the start of my Nordic tripping

When I set off on this trip I had a few places on my list that were must sees. Darjeeling was one, Burma another, Patagonia and finally, Scandinavia.

I had in my mind a vision of small colourful wooden houses, lots of big pine trees, beautiful combinations of water and land, awesome design and lots of cured/salted/pickled/marinated fish and dill. All of that it turns out is true and obviously a bit simplistic. I've already discovered more than that of course. I also think, and I'm digressing here, that I clearly have a thing for places of extreme weather. I really like the idea of tough winters, they seem to shape places and people in ways I find interesting. Long winters also make for glorious, if short, summers and I hope to take advantage of this one.

I arrived in Copenhagen to a fantastic welcome from Camilla who I had last seen in Pyin oo Lwin, Burma. Camilla had volunteered to show me around her home town back then and I took her up on her offer because we all know the best way to discover a place is through the eyes of a local. The first thing you notice in Danemark, unsurprisingly, is how well everything is designed and, less inspiring, the cost. Holy mackerel are things expensive, and this is the cheapest country in Scandinavia.

After the initial price shock had past, we took the wonderful public transport to the apartment a friend had kindly lent us for the week. Guess what we did then? We did as the locals do and got ourselves some bicycles. Copenhagen is as bike friendly as the New York Times likes to remind its readers of every three months or so. This may just be me, but I feel like the Gray Lady takes every chance it gets to tell us all that the Danes are better at, well, basically everything. The somewhat unfortunate truth is this may actually be true. Their bike lanes are wide and ubiquitous, their city is elegant and manageable, the people are kind and direct (which I like), everyone speaks more or less perfect English, they are all absurdly good looking, pay high taxes happily, and are socialist to boot. This is catnip to the Times.

Camilla lead me around on our big, unmissable orange bikes for a tour of the city which culminated in a smorbord (rye bread with all sorts of Nordic goodies piled on top), chocolate, and a beer on the dock at Nyhaven. In another sign of their possible superiority, the Danish have what looks like the only socially responsible and well behaved street drinking culture in the world. We hit up every single design museum in town, enjoyed the public good of free cinema in a park, and drank a lot of tasty Danish microbrews (400 or so in this tiny country)  while checking out the good-looking Danish men.

I enjoyed Copenhagen enormously, though I can't help thinking about how long and dreary the winters must be. It amazes me that people bike year round, through the cold, snow, and bitter Baltic wind. I'm curious enough about the differences in lifestyle to consider coming back and visit in the winter.

Next stop Stockholm.

Interlude: Brussels and Geneva

I know its been a couple of weeks since I updated but that's only because I've been busy visiting family and friends, and though fun and fascinating to me, it may be less so to my legion of readers. Just so you don't think I did nothing - here is a short recap.

First stop was in Belgium to visit my adorable godson (I'm contractually obliged to say that). Brussels in mid-summer is a lovely place indeed. Long dinners on big urban decks while the sky very slowly fades to black will make you forget you are in Northern Europe, and especially that the sun is never supposed to shine north of the Loire.

Geneva came next. I hadn't realized until this trip how much Geneva and Brussels have in common. Francophone cities in bilingual (trilingual) countries full of people who are not natives and both make a claim to the best chocolate. Geneva is way better run though. I'll take Swiss efficiency over Belgium chaos any day. The highlight of Geneva was jumping off a bridge into the Rhone and being carried by the not so gentle current - and then doing it again. A small side trip to Montreux to see how the other-half retires and a day trip to Annecy and Talloires were wonderful additions.

Now off to Scandinavia. Finally!